City renters urged to move to the bush

Renters and skilled workers in Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong are being encouraged to relocate to regional areas under changes to the NSW Government’s Regional Relocation Grant scheme.

Long-term renters will now receive $7000 and skilled workers will be paid $10,000 to relocate more than 100 kilometres from their current home.

Deputy Premier and Minister for Regional Infrastructure and Services Andrew Stoner announced the revised incentives as part of the Government’s response to the final report of the NSW Decentralisation Taskforce, released last week.

Originally, the relocation scheme only applied to city home owners who bought new property in regional areas and was not subjected to distance criteria.

Mr Stoner said the changes would help grow regional economies and create more jobs in the regions.

“We have a strong record on regional development, delivering billions of dollars in infrastructure projects and hundreds of new frontline workers to our regional communities, but we also need to look at ways of encouraging regional population growth.

“The grant will support efforts to ease Sydney’s tight rental market and help to boost population growth in regional areas to meet the expected increase in demand for jobs being driven by our investment in regional infrastructure and business growth,” he said.

Applications for both grants will be subject to an annual cap, which for 2013-14 is $10.4 million. Legislation to implement the changes will be introduced on January 1 2014.

Mr Stoner said the Government was also planning to relocate 1500 public sector jobs from metropolitan Sydney to regional NSW by 2021.

Grace Removals has branches in all three cities – Sydney, Wollongong and Newcastle – and can help relocate families and individuals to any town in the State, no matter how remote. We aim to take the stress out of moving with specialist services that include everything from finding a new home to providing advice on local schools in the area.